Bio-Diesel

The lights are quota based. I’m done for the day.Taking advantage of some wi-fi from the truck right now.

6 more tomorrow.

Bio is good for everyone. If it hasn’t already… it will make your fuel cheaper (cheaper to transfer) as well as all of your food… and just about everything that is transferred via diesel.

Lol.

There may be a higher NUMBER of people who die refilling their mower, but not a greater CHANCE.

Consider 2 scenarios:

  1. refilling your mower with gas
  2. going into outer space w/o a space suit

I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone actually dying from scenario 2, but I assume that there are a decent amount of deaths, yearly, from scenario 1.

However, the chance of me dying w/ scenario 1 is very very very small. The chance of me dying from scenario 2 is probably 100%.

This is exactly why you’re wrong.

even if 100 people die a year from filling there mowers and 1 person dies from making bio-diesel

Chance of accident (mower) 100/1,000,000 = .01% chance

Chance of accident (diesel) 1/1,000 = .1% chance

Just saying.

Which is why you’re wrong NEWMAN.:spank:

I said more likely to die which was the statement you questioned initially.

Not… a higher “chance” as I said in my other statement.

As far as chance goes the “chances” of you dieing in a bio fire (even if it is .1%) is still less likely to happen because you will not be making bio, which means that even though the percentage is higher your exposure = 0. The chances of me dieing before 60 in China is very high… in the US not so high. BUT I’m in the US, so that “chance” applies to me.

0 people have died making bio-diesel, so that is 0% chance anyway.:mamoru:

YOU (C.NEWMAN) are more likely to die from filling your mower than dieing in space or making bio diesel.

The chances of you dieing via bio-diesel is much slimmer than .1% because you do not make bio-diesel.

Yes, I know what you’re saying but chance of dieing is relative to the event actually occuring which is not likely for anyone in this thread anyway.
:nerd:
dieing.

Still wrong.

I don’t own a lawnmower.

:gotme:

Besides, you can’t make comparisons with 0 in the denominator, duh. Simple math.

Most of my friends run waste vegetable oil in their cars/trucks. They have experimented making biodiesel but no one want’s to try it in their car.

objective: save money
outcome: burnt house

Found the article from the other forum but the link is dead so here is the text.

EDMONDS, Wash. - Trying to live green and beat high gasoline prices, some enterprising Americans are turning cooking oil into biodiesel in their garages. Problem is, some of these do-it-yourselfers are burning down the house.

Fire officials around the country are warning of the dangers and considering new restrictions to make sure people don’t torch the whole neighborhood.

“You won’t find a rule anywhere that says you can’t cook biodiesel in your garage,” said Bob Benedetti, a flammable-liquids engineer for the National Fire Protection Association in Quincy, Mass.

A matter of time
Ferocious fires and explosions blamed on backyard refining operations have been reported in Washington state, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts and Oregon. No deaths or serious injuries have resulted, but some fire officials say it is only a matter of time.

In recent years, many Americans have discovered that diesel cars can run on fuel made primarily from vegetable oil, and about the only drawback is a french fry smell. Some motorists are going so far as to brew their own fuel from used frying oil obtained from restaurants, which are often glad to get rid of the gunk for little or no charge.

Biodiesel is typically made by combining the cooking oil with methanol, or wood alcohol, in a mixture heated to about 120 degrees. But methanol is highly flammable. And frying oil, as any cook knows, can catch fire if it gets too hot or comes into contact with a flame.

The results can be spectacular, particularly in cases where home refiners have stockpiled tanks and barrels of material.

When a barn caught fire in 2006 outside Canby, Ore., “it was a huge column of black smoke unlike anything I’d ever seen in a typical fire,” said Canby Fire Marshal Troy Buzalsky. “We had flames that scorched nearby 70-foot trees. It was so hot that it burned aluminum and sagged metal.”

The blaze was caused by an electrical short, and the flames eventually ignited a 275-gallon plastic container of fuel.

“I took a lot of safety measures. It was pretty mind-blowing when I did have a fire,” said Jeff Brandt, the barn’s owner. He said had even visited his local firehouse to let them know what he was doing. But the blaze hasn’t discouraged Brandt from continuing to make fuel.

Phoenix considers restrictions
In Phoenix, officials may restrict residential biodiesel production to properties of one acre or more, Fire Chief Bob Kahn said.

“We’re trying not to discourage people from doing it,” Kahn said. But “when you’re rendering it in a garage in a family or neighborhood setting, you’re exposing an awful lot of people to this potential hazard.”

Setting up a home biodiesel operation is relatively easy. With hundreds of how-to guides posted online and kits for sale, enthusiasts can get started with less than $500.

“It’s a fun little hobby, like making your own beer,” said Lyle Rudensey, who brews about 50 gallons per month in his Seattle garage to heat his home and run his car. “It’s really kind of neat to go into your garage and fill up.”

But in the classes he has taught for three years, Rudensey urges people to take precautions such as storing chemicals in metal cabinets and keeping fire extinguishers on hand. Similarly, Bill Carney, who gives workshops in Louisiana, said he tries to scare his students with horror stories and pictures of fires.

In the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, fumes from chemicals used to make biodiesel caused an explosion and fire at a home in August. In Colorado in 2006, a homeowner who was processing a tank of homemade biodiesel forgot to turn off the heating element, and a fire burned the surrounding shed and equipment. Investigators found seven 55-gallon barrels of methanol and other hazardous materials.

Blazes, blasts near Seattle
In Monroe, not far from Seattle, chemical vapors caused an explosion last May in an attached garage where a homeowner was brewing biodiesel. Firefighters put out the fire before it caused serious damage. In December, a biodiesel blaze broke out in a shed in Edmonds, a Seattle suburb, and quickly destroyed the owner’s house.

Edmonds Fire Chief Thomas Tomberg said he wants to see a code that tells home-brewers what they can and cannot do.

In Northborough, Mass., a biodiesel fire in 2007 destroyed a home and caused about $350,000 in damage, Fire Chief David Durgin said. The homeowner had served in Iraq and wanted to stop relying on foreign oil.

“They got out with the clothes on their backs and their lives,” Durgin said. But he added: “Somebody ultimately will have a fire, burn their homes, be injured or killed by this.”

A couple of things that bothered me about the information in this thread.

Yes you can run SVO, or WVO in your diesel engine. is it a good idea over the long term? probably not. If you’ve ever seen a how-to on making biodiesel you will notice there is quite a bit of glycerin that is removed from the oil before you actually have BD that you can put in your engine. running on SVO or WVO leaves all of that in the fuel. so while it may “run fine” you’re probably going to have problems in the long run, particulary if you have a modern diesel, or one of the new ones with particulate filters.

BD actually is cleaner than regular diesel and has more of a solvent effect. therefore it may be necessary to upgrade fittings/hoses in your fuel system if you want to run 100% BD. Anywhere that i’ve heard of it being sold it is still blended with petroleum diesel.

It’s not the vegetable oil, methanol, or lye that is dangerous. The dangerous part is when you mix the methanol and lye together creating Methoxide, before it is added to the oil. Obviously there are other safety issues with some of these setups that have been mentioned (poor wiring, components not rated for application, etc) but chemically speaking this is the dangerous part.

The glycerol is removed from the methyl ester product (biodiesel). It cannot be removed from the triglyceride because it doesn’t exist prior to the transesterification.

I would be more concerned about the higher viscosity of the oil compared to the biodiesel, which is probably why they preheat it when it is cold.

After all of the research that I have done (a decent amount over the past ~5 years), I have come to the conclusion that making bio-diesel is best left to engineers and chemists in an industrial setting. The chemicals are dangerous in a number of ways that I personally don’t want to deal with. The advantage to bio-diesel is that it can run in modern cars typically without issue. That is if it made right.

The best solution for the amateur is running an old diesel on straight vegetable oil (SVO). So far, this company seems to make the best conversion kits according to various people on the interwebz: http://www.frybrid.com/

Despite what some people claim, you cannot run an SVO system on a modern high pressure injected diesel. Have a VW TDI? Forget about doing this. Dino Diesel and Bio-diesel are your choices. High pressure pumps can not handle the viscosity of SVO, even when heated.

From what I have read, the best cars for running SVO are old Mercedes Benz’s, preferably with the OM617 with a turbo, if you want a car that will last forever, and not be a total slug. Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_OM617_engine

I have also read that 12V Cummins Dodges do well with SVO as do 7.3 Powerstroke Fords (like Jack’s). I’d probably lean towards the Ford since Dodge is not known for making quality trucks from the 94-on era.

There are other vehicles that do OK with SVO too, I just listed the engines that are known for being bulletproof in general.

I so want to make an SVO vehicle, but it is not conducive to apartment living.

My friends have run SWO in old Mercedes, ford power strokes, GM diesels, Dodge cumins, and VW TDIs. The important thing is the oil temp. It is a simple process and I think only the first two conversions we did were kits. We converted the rest of them ourselves.

I realize that the glycerine isn’t actually there prior to transesterification, but i’m making the assumtion that a similar byproduct could be created when combusted. Maybe i’m wrong, but i’m pretty sure that veggie oil will produce quite a bit of soot/smoke when burned, i.e. a grease fire in the kitchen. Maybe the heat/pressure of combustion in an engine would eliminate this. Just throwing it out there as a word of caution, particularly for newer diesels.

Le sigh.

Soot is formed when the combustion is incomplete (oxygen limiting). I’m not sure how glycerol or another alcohol would be formed without the presence of another alcohol, as that’s part of the transesterification of the triglyceride. Without the alcohol there will not be an alcohol for substitution of the carbon chains. No amount of pressure or temperature is going to make this happen.

my father set up his “meth lab” with items he found on the side of the road. I think it cost him like 50 bucks for random clamps and odds and ends. Seriously if you light your house on fire making bio diesel you are seriously doing it wrong.

He’s been making bio diesel for at least 3 years now…

Bio also has that french fry smell. He only has bio diesel running in one of his cars when he needs it all the other a grease cars now.

1995 - f150, 2x 198x Mercs

My brother also has like a 2006ish F350 Vege truck now too. after he rolled his last one lol.

It will work for a while in a TDI…
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=186108&highlight=svo+damage

VW’s quality control is crap. Some run forever, which are a small handful, but most are unreliable piles that make Kias look like hondas. Personally I would never own another one and if I did I certainly would not be running veggie oil through it.

I tried but it logged me off.

There are very easy ways to make sure it is safe to run. Quit being sissys.

According to that article… nobody has even been seriously hurt making this stuff. Houses are easy to replace… gas prices are not.

You’re kind of right… like Goober is telling you.

If your B-100 has glycerin in it… it isn’t B-100. Its a bad batch. Start over.
If your WVO/SVO has glycerin in it, you have a bad batch.

Burning WVO is perfectly safe if it is filtered and pre-heated.

My particular setup has its own fuel tank, filters, heaters, fuel pump, temp sensors, pressure switches, timer cards and fuel lines. The only time WVO comes in contact with #2 is in the heads/injectors. I know of several people with over 100k on their WVO kits and their injectors looked like they only had 50k on them. US diesel is dirtier than the WVO I’m putting in my truck.

:word:

My oil is almost 200* when it hits the heads… and while it is in the fuel rail it gets up to almost 300* easy. Truck runs quieter and has more fuel pressure on the WVO. Makes way less smoke too.

JJ - Engineers and chemists are less and less interested in bio as it becomes easier and easier for anyone on the street to make it. There isn’t any money in it for them. It is a very simple process. The hardest part is collecting the oil.

As far as the viscosity of the oil…
http://www.frybrid.com/images/viscosity.jpg

Look at where WVO would be @ 200*… doesn’t seem like the high pressure pump would know the difference. If it would make you feel better… just add #2 to your WVO to cut it before you heat it.
I can store VO for you. I have a nice filling station now… but my pump is for clear water only… but will move veggie @ 30*.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/JACK1992VR4/F350/th_Oil_Slushie-1.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/JACK1992VR4/F350/th_Oil_Flow.jpg

So basically… Bio-D is for losers :frowning:
WVO is where its at. :slight_smile:

that first video made me cum

:roflpicard: Yes because replacing your house after insurance denies your claim because of what you are doing is worth all the money you saved running biodiesel. While I agree with a lot of what you are saying some of the arguments you use are down right laughable.

Hopefully you’re one of the people who can read through the sarcasm.

Insurance wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Most of the people storing these materials on the property notify the fire marshall in their neighbor hood and most of the marshalls do not care at all. It is just a heads up. There are no codes for storing VO… it is not a chemical.

Methanol is race fuel. You’re allowed to have x amount on your property before you need a permit.

Bio requires such little amounts of Lye… it wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar.

These materials and their handling are completely legal. Most of the fires start from electrical (bad wiring, improper wiring)… which is usually the case in most house fires not caused by cooking or arson.